The few weeks in the beginning of June were the last time we would be staying in Berlin for any considerable duration. Of course we would probably still visit occasionally, as we’d made some very good friends during our (almost) five-year stint there, but there would be no going back. Not really, once we gave back the keys to our apartment – as these days getting a flat in Berlin is nearly impossible. Should the force happen to be with you to the degree it takes to actually be able to rent one, it’ll most likely be ridiculously expensive.
The final leg of the journey before heading to Canary Islands for good was also the most critical and exhausting. First of all, we fidgeted nervously while we waited for the Houseverwaltung (the owners of our apartment) to come to a decision regarding our Italian pal, who was eager to take over our flat. Fortunately it all turned out well: they did increase the guy’s rent by a hundred euros or so, but he was still happy to take it, as it nevertheless beat the hell out of any other options. Secondly, one of the most critical issues, at least for me personally, was to finalise the arrangement with the intercontinental movers and pack up the studio.
Importing things to the Canaries can be an issue. Theoretically, Canary Islands are a part of the European Union, as they are an integral part of Spain; but they are an autonomous province and, as a remote region, subject to specific fiscal and economic arrangements. They are in the eurozone, but not in the VAT system. Instead of VAT, there is a local Sales Tax (IGIC) with a general rate of 7%, an increased tax rate of 13.5%, a reduced tax rate of 3%, and a zero tax rate for certain basic need products and services. Used household goods and personal items can be imported to the Canaries free of any customs duties and taxes, provided that they have been owned and used for a minimum of six months, and the importation must take place within one year of registering a residence on the Canaries and no later than three months after one’s arrival there. Furthermore, the “the items must correspond to the social and economic status of the client“, which probably means that you can’t import truckloads of expensive gadgets if you’re otherwise broke, as the customs might find that slightly suspicious (more information: http://webportal.atlasintl.com/Customs%20Docs/spain.pdf).
In order to pull this off, I had to prepare a detailed list of everything that would be transported. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem and would simply consist of jotting down “dishes”, “pots & pans”, “books”, “clothes”, or whatever… But I did own about 3.5 cubic metres (yes, we measured the heap) of relatively expensive musical instruments and electronic equipment for my studio, and I was obliged to state every microphone on the list. Thus I finally headed to the studio one day and spent eight hours packing everything and including it on the list. After packing my wee collection of instruments, cables, microphones, computers, electronics, and hardware that weighs a ton in the oppressive heat that had been known to invade the city in the summer, I was utterly spent. I also prepared all the invoices I could still find after decades of collecting my precious assortment of musical “toys”, just in case (though the movers said that would most likely not be necessary, but better safe than sorry, I say, especially in case of malevolent bureaucrats).
To say that I managed to obtain a nasty case of muscle soreness would be an understatement, as I could barely stand on my feet the next morning. Nevertheless, we had to go to the studio one last time, as my fellow co-tenant there procured a confectioner’s van (I kid you not, it’s just that the guy works at a confectionery) in order to help me lug all of this crap to our flat. Monika, our pal and I managed to stuff everything into the van, measuring roughly four cubic metres, and the poor vehicle was almost full. All the stuff made it to our apartment in one piece and we filled a part of our bedroom with it:
Then Monika and I packed the rest of our personal effects and waited for the customs personnel to arrive: the movers had told us that we might receive a visit from the customs, and customs officers did indeed schedule an inspection… But these bureaucrats, at least, turned out not to be all that malevolent at all: apparently they ultimately decided that they didn’t really find the rather extensive list suspicious (or simply preferred to go for a beer instead of dropping by). The list made me quite nervous, though. Yes, these were my personal items and the vast majority of them were indeed older than six months; but I doubted that the customs were used to people importing four cubic metres of musical equipment and electronics to the Canaries every day. Nevertheless, they were completely disinterested in the whole affair and simply stamped the list without actually dropping by and checking anything. So far so good.
In a few days the movers showed up as promised – only three or four hours too early, so we were still packing the last of the stuff while they were already lugging it all to the truck. I was very anxious about the whole affair: after all, some of my instruments are rather expensive and most of them are precious to me personally. It would be a severe blow if anything got damaged. To make matters worse, due to our budget constraints we chose not to succumb to paranoia and pay for extra insurance, even though I couldn’t afford to buy hardcases for everything (I would have needed about twenty hardcases, which would have cost a small fortune), so most of the instruments were in carry bags that aren’t really meant to serve as decent protection against impacts. The movers certainly weren’t happy about it, at least initially, while we had still been discussing it all on the phone and via e-mails… But in the end, once they saw the vile heap, they reassured us that everything would be in order. Instead of complicating, they just charged us for a couple of cubic metres more than they actually transported (my estimate was approximately 6 m3, but they believed it was more like 8 m3), mostly because they wouldn’t be able to fill the transport ship container from bottom to top by placing the fragile items on top of one another, at least not without installing some supports. Mind you, this is no complaint at all: the movers were superbly professional and I do recommend them wholeheartedly to anyone moving from Germany to the Canaries (link: http://www.en.mobiltrans.com/). Apart from merrily paying for one or two cubic metres extra, I was more than happy to tip the poor guys quite generously as well (they gave the bass drum – filled with clothes, to make matters worse – and the horrifically heavy hardware bags an occasional evil eye as they sweated rivers down the stairs). They told us our crap would be arriving to the Canaries in a couple of weeks, said bye-bye, and drove the truck to Hamburg where they proceeded to dump everything on a transport ship – on their own, without my fidgety supervision, which, admittedly, did not sit particularly well with me, but it was what it was. The total price for intercontinental maritime door-to-door shipping was a hefty 2300 euros, but screw it – I’d never seriously considered not taking my precious earthly musical possessions with me, though I did toy around with the idea a few times. However, Monika told me not to even joke about this, as I’d probably go insane without my heap of music-related crap… And she was right: of course selling the equipment or storing it in Slovenia would have been a horrible blunder.
After all our stuff was gone, we finally really strayed into the twilight zone: camping in an empty apartment in Berlin with only a couple of suitcases, as we were in fact on vacation somewhere, was completely surreal, and without actually realising it I kept looking for this gizmo or that doodad around the flat that now reverberated with the sound of emptiness. As the weather in Berlin was beautiful at the time, we spent most days outside, chatting with our friends before leaving for good. During this time we also cancelled our German freelancer statuses and wrapped up the rest of the loose ends (except for our German bank accounts, which we would leave open until this September or October, purely for practical reasons: we’re currently still paying for German health insurance, while we’re waiting for a “strategic” change of legislation to come into force in Spain, after which we’ll register our business on the Canaries, cancel the last of our remaining German obligations, and close the accounts).
The twilight-zoney atmosphere was compounded by the fact that a few days before our final flight, Monika was contacted by our real estate agent, who claimed that we had short-changed the poor, poor bank and actually paid EUR 3000 less for the flat than we’d been supposed to. She threatened that they’d annul the whole procedure, but judging from all the documentation in question we believed that would be pretty much impossible: all the paperwork had already gone through, supposedly; but unfortunately we hadn’t taken possession of it all yet, which was a problem. Furthermore, we had indeed been aware of the 3000-euro discrepancy between the list price and the price on all the relevant paperwork, but after checking that with Nocturnal Attorney we had been positive that this was either due to the difference in gross and net price (the taxes and related fees corresponded to the difference pretty much to the last euro) or because the actual final price differed from the one initially listed in the advert. Monika informed Nocturnal Attorney of the complication immediately, phoned the real estate agent, and told her we would by no means be discussing this further until we arrived to Tenerife personally and spoke to our lawyer. As soon as she heard the word “lawyer”, the real estate agent stopped threatening us and started whining about this in fact being her mistake – which had already been obvious to us. So for the next few weeks we would be oscillating between feeling bad for the agent and the “fuck real estate agencies and banks in particular” attitude. Of course, the issue would keep weighing on us until we could clear it up.
On the morning of 21 June we finally bid farewell to what had formerly been our street, clutching a couple of heavy suitcases (including precious digital archives on a bunch of hard drives that I’d been unwilling to dump in a transport ship container, as they contained several years’ worth of unfinished musical projects), laptops, sandwiches, passports, and one-way plane tickets. As we walked down Warthestrasse for the last time, I would have reflected on our time in Berlin and all the fascinating people we had met and hanged out with during our (almost) five-year stay, had I not been paying so much attention to canine landmines that might be lurking on the pavement and fantasising about greener (and cheaper) pastures.
In the evening of 21 June we arrived to Tenerife for good. FINE, let’s not be overly dramatic and settle for “until further notice“…
